Risk Expert: GMOs Could Destroy the Global Ecosystem Washington's Blog

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Risk Expert: GMOs Could Destroy the Global Ecosystem Washington’s Blog .

Posted on March 26, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

Risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb predicted the 2008 financial crisis, by pointing out that commonly-used risk models were wrong.  Distinguished professor of risk engineering at New York University, author of best-sellers The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, Taleb became financially independent after the crash of 1987, and wealthy during the 2008 financial crisis.

Now, Taleb is using his statistical risk acumen to take on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Taleb’s conclusion:  GMOs could cause “an irreversible termination of life at some scale, which could be the planet.”

Sound crazy?

Sure it does … but only because we don’t understand statistics, and so we have no handle on what’s risky and what’s not.

Taleb and his 2 co-authors write in a new draft paper:

For nature, the “ruin” is ecocide: an irreversible…

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A System Doomed To Fail | Zero Hedge

In the broadest sense, there are three types of systems in the world.

The first are simple systems which are characterized by only a few variables or agents, and which can be described by perhaps a handful of equations (or even one).

The second are systems which are characterized by disorganized complexity. These may consist of huge numbers of agents or variables, and their interactions cannot be described by simple equations; yet the overall system is well-described statistically through averages and can be described as being stochastic. Such systems are typically characterized by a stable equilibrium, provided there are no external shocks to the system. They are incapable of generating internal shocks or surprises. For example, you might consider the distribution of air molecules in a room. You may not be able to predict the motion of any particular air molecule, but you can be reasonable certain that the global population won’t do anything unexpected (like all move into one side of the room leaving a vacuum on the other side).